BLOGLET FOR WEDNESDAY JULY 2

Sorry to report, I can’t do much reporting. I have been editing on a film for Nelson Mandela all day, and seeing old friends at night. Last night I was invited to screen my latest, Boob Tube (see commentary on Mediachannel et.al) with a lively discussion afterwards about hypocrisy, sexual and otherwise here as there.

The big topics in the press have revolved around Robert Mugabe’s recent fraudulent election, claiming re-election as President even as every observer in the world considered the process flawed by fraud, violence, intimidation, not to mention the withdrawal at the last minute of his opponent. His “information” minister reportedly told western critics to “go hang.”

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki supported the results ostensibly to continue his “mediation” efforts underway without much success since 2001. The African Union Summit called on Mugabe to form a coalition government of national unity. He walked out of the summit in a snit.

But just like in the United States, where the news media focuses outside, a more serious storm is moving in from the horizon. In Zimbabwe, there, in Iraq here (to some degree) and followed by unlimited reporting on every burp in the political posturing of a campaign that is barely underway. Meanwhile, the bigger threat from a collapsing economy is largely left for the back pages and poorly explained.

I have been writing about how the Subprime implosion has spread globally. Now I can see it up close. In Johannesburg yesterday, the main bus company DOUBLED the fares with no warning leading to mayhem in the morning rush. In, of all places, Gandhi Square where the biggest MetroBus Terminal is located, there was chaos as angry commuters vented ourage pulling other passengers from the buses in acts of mayhem and protest.

Meanwhile the Star, the big English language paper, began announcing price hikes everywhere including in the cost of their own newspaper. This situation is going to get much worse and we will be seeing riots here. The recent outbreak of xenophobia in South Africa with attacks on immigrants from other African countries was rooted to some degree in this deepening economic crisis. Not surprising crime is going up. Murders seem down but house robberies and hijackings are up as well as crimes against businesses. One tactic robbers use here to is to steak forklifts and make off with whole ATM machines. A recent commission found that local banks have been gouging consumers.

It seems like the security industry offers the most jobs to underskilled people.

Rising prices will lead to political uprisings. Mark my words. Meanwhile in the US, 600 Starbucks are being closed and car sales are plummeting .Retirement contributions are falling off, and all manufacturers are coping with higher prices.

Carolyn Baker is circulating these stories;

PETER SCHIFF: GLOOM AND DOOM? NAH, JUST FOR THE U.S.
U.S. AIRPORTS TO LOSE 10% OF DOMESTIC FLIGHTS


WILL THE U.S. INVADE CANADA FOR ITS OIL?

AS THE MIDDLE CLASS IS FORCED TO SAY “NO”

“Particularly in the US, the word ‘no’ is making itself felt amongst the formerly middle class. Through a combination of the housing bubble burst and rising oil prices these are the folks where the word ‘no’ was a minor inconvenience, which rarely popped up. Yes, you can have a mortgage with no money down. Yes, you can afford that new truck. Have that trip to the Bahamas because guess what…you’re worth it! Yes…yes, you can. Everything is growing. Everything is good…You can’t lose! Well, it would seem like we can, and as $150 a barrel oil looms in the short term, the ‘no’ word is on its way back. How will the public take it? What will they do?”

Thats all I have time to….No time to comment on several worrying developments–Bush allegedly “preparing the battlefield” —ie getting ready for war on Iran…Ovama’s embrace of Bushevik “Faith Based” initiatives. (Remember all candidates shift and posture according to what their polls and startegists tell them….He has to move right in the election…Remember too that JFK went to the right of Dick Nixon with his cold war rhetoric….This is, the game.

You won’t bet dissilusioned if you abandon your illusions.

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YES IT IS A JOKE.

I watched in disbelief. I laughed. I mused. Honest, I had nothing to do with this. Is this a message from the Mount? Is someone telling me something? Or is it just the ultimate put on? More like the latter.

Me running for President? I am running from Presidents.

I don’t think so. If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve…un, but then again, maybe I couldn’t do much worse. And if they raised the pay….??

Let me know what you think.

NEXT

Now on to the blog I wrote:

VICTORY? The British Government has taken George Washington Off Of Its Traitors in the Colonies list. The General was placed on the list in 1776

London Telegraph: “The US Senate has approved a bill to remove former South African president Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress from the US terror watch list.

The bill now heads to the White House, where it is expected to be signed by President George W. Bush in time for the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner’s 90th birthday on July 18.”

SENATE ACTS TO REMOVE MANDELA FROM TERRORIST LIST
WATCHING THE CONCERT IN LONDON
THE DYING HONEY BEE DANGER

Lets keep our priorities straight.

Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday Morning: Inflation is sweeping the world—here in South Africa, its projected to go to 10%—the recession that everyone denied or said we are on the “verge” of, is getting deeper. One response from a top Australian Treasury official: save wombats. BBC reports:

Australia’s top treasury official is taking five weeks leave to look after endangered wombats.

Ken Henry, treasury secretary and animal conservationist, has warned that hairy-nosed wombats are “on death row”.

But opposition politicians - and even wombat lovers - question if now is the time to be thinking about wombats.

Inflation is at a 16-year high, interest rates are up and fuel prices are rising. Mr Henry will also miss a central bank meeting.

For the love of wombats

Mr Henry will be looking after 115 hairy-nosed wombats in an isolated spot in northern Queensland, with no mobile phone coverage and two-and-a-half hours on a rough track from the nearest town.

CREDIT CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA BLAMED ON SUBPRIME FALL OUT

Our crisis is being felt everywhere—its called a “contagion.”

The economic slide happened so quickly that South Africans were caught
off guard - despite warning signs from the US and UK.

South Africans drowning in debt were not prepared for rising interest
rates, high fuel prices and other economic factors.

This month the Reserve Bank increased the repo rate by 50 basis points
to 12 percent.

This raised the prime rate that banks charge their clients to 15,5
percent. For a bank customer with a R500 000 bond, it will mean an extra
R200 a month and on R1-million bond a further R400.

Garth de Klerk, CEO of international credit information provider Coface
South Africa, said the sub-prime issue was “conveniently ignored” during
the economic boom.

Sub-prime is lending money to high-risk consumers. Several banks in the
US and UK had to be bailed out after customers could not repay their
home loans.

“There was a false sense of security and consumers were overspending by
16 percent to 18 percent,” he said.

This was not the only reason for the current crisis, De Klerk said.

Financial institutions offering easy credit before the implementation of
the National Credit Act were also to blame, along with political
uncertainty.

AND, LEST YOU THINK IT’S OVER HERE: ANOTHER FORECAST OF WORST TO COME

CONCERT FOR MANDELA

On Fridat Night, I watched the 46664 concert for Nelson Mandela’s AIDS charities out of London, another superstar event very much like the one I covered three years ago in Capetown. Only Beyonce wasn’t there but Amy Winehouse was, not my first choice for the role of socially responsible artist playing militant cheerleader. Anyway, she was singing Jerry Dammar’s classic “Free Nelson Mandela,” the militant anthem he wrote for The Specials back in l984.

I was prepared to hate Amy but her version was fresh, and her voice magical and so on an artistic level, it was cool to see her dancing and prancing on stage, although she seemed other worldly and so vulnerable, therebut not there. At one point I thought she was about to flash us as she clung to the bottom of her tight black miniskirt while bouncing up and down.

The Independent in London noted: “Amy didn’t let us down. The only sign of her recent tussle with emphysema appeared a dramatically runny nose. To the delight of her fans she was back to something like top form as she ripped through “Rehab” and “Valerie””

Mandela, at almost 90 seemed to be in conversation with someone in his box and not really watching at that point. The music may have been too loud for his hearing aid.

His own appearance introduced by Will Smith was electrifying but you could see him grimacing as he walked in what seems the last stage of his long walk to freedom on two canes while leaning on his wife Graca Machel to get to the microphone. He kept it short imploring the crowd to get involved in the fight against AIDS and poverty. “Its in your hands” was the motto. Reported the Guardian, he said, “Our work is for freedom for all.”

“Even as we celebrate, let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete. Where there is poverty and sickness, including Aids, where human beings are being oppressed, there’s more work to be done. Our work is for freedom for all.” He told the crowd: “It is in your hands now.”

Madiba also said that this was his last visit to the Britain. A South African friend took one look at his condition and predicted this may be his last public appearance.

The Independent report continued:

“Among the estimated 46,000 at the event were Gordon Brown and Kate Middleton, Prince William’s girlfriend. Amy Winehouse defied her ill health by appearing on stage to applause just days after coming out of hospital.
But Victoria Beckham was booed when she sent a birthday wish via video link from Los Angeles. Bono and the Edge sang Stevie Wonders Birthday song—written to lobby for the ML King holiday –to Mandela saying his birthday should become a holiday.

Mandela also paid tribute to the efforts of artists to free him, “Many years ago there was a historic concert which called for our freedom. Your voices carried across the water and inspired us in our prison cells far away.”

Anne Lennox gave a moving speech about AIDS. The last time I was with her was on the dock at Robben Island, the prison island where Mandela spent 21 years. Along with Peter Gabriel, she has been deeply immersed in human rights work for years and very articulate about the issues.

This was the running order of the show;

1830 - Live show starts with a performance by Jivan Gasparyan
1833 - Will Smith introduces Razorlight
1847 - Into the Hoods
1853 - Sipho
1858 - Quincy Jones introduces Leona Lewis
1910 - Zucchero and Jivan
1917 - Susannah Owiyo and D’Gary
1920 - Lewis Hamilton introduces Sugababes
1934 - Will Smith performs
1937 - Annie Lennox speech then performance with Agape Choir
1949 - Emmanuel Jal
1955 - Jamelia performance
2005 - Vusi Mahlasela
2010 - Geri Halliwell introduces Johnny Clegg and Joan Baez
2021 - Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith introduce Nelson Mandela, then perform Happy Birthday with all artists
2026 - Nelson Mandela speech
2037 - Eddy Grant and Kurt Darren
2046 - June Sarpong introduces Simple Minds
2059 - Stephen Fry introduces Brian May and Andrea Corr
2105 - Amy Winehouse
2112 - June Sarpong introduces 9ice & Bebe Cool
2119 - June Sarpong introduces Josh Groban and Vusi
2132 - Amaral
2144 - Queen and Paul Rodgers
2202 - Jerry Dammers, Amy Winehouse and all artists perform Free Nelson Mandela.

What was new this year was the way people could text money and messages to him and the organizer by sending it to 46664. I am told that the concert, and a parallel auction, raised a lot of money for Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Foundation. “We did very well,” a board member told me. I now have a T Shirt from the event but wil have to lose some weight to wear it.

I still also a texting retard. I can’t seem to do it. You see what happens when you are over the hill?

BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA,

I wish the mood here was as celebratory. The revolution Mandela led has produced more of a “norma”l country with the only reminder of what was on Public Service Announcements appearing on SABC. The public broadcaster produced smartly and no doubt expensively by the network’s educational department,

Otherwise, the papers are filled with tales of corruption charges, threats against the Constitutional Court and the National Prosecuting Authority who are charging politicians with abuses, the cutacks at the Scorpions, an anti-corruption police unit, an internal war at the Pubic Broadcaster the SABC, many conflicts of interest, criticisms of President Mbeki for re-upping a police chief accused of consorting with criminals, and not speaking out against the breakdown of order in neighboring Zimbabwe. A youth and union leader has vowed to kill for Jacob Zuma, the new head of the African National Congress. This rhetorical excess has outraged many.

In South Africa, as in many countries, the power of the market system has overtaken the often spoken of “power of the people.” Poverty, AIDs, and other problems evident in the apartheid days are still evident and deepening.

Everywhere you turn, you meet people who want to leave or express disgust and disillusion. As someone who crusaded against apartheid, this is hard to hear but you have to probe deeper to account for it.

People everywhere are easily seduced by the trappings of power and corrupted by money. Revolutons often lose their spark and abandon their values. That’s an old and universal story. Here you have a reform to promote black economic advancement that has turned into a hustle and away to get rich for many, including old ANC veterans. The President’s own brother, an economist, has denounced the BEE program as the wrong road to economic advancement.

This is an issue I will get back to.

MUGABE

Just like Mbeki’s style and motives in South Africa are confusing to many, Mugabe’s often brutal maneuvers in Zimbabwe seem obvious. There seems to be a universal disgust with the man that is well deserved but there is also a background to these tensions that most of our media misses, argues William Bowles at WilliamBowles.info:

“Zimbabwe, like its neighbor, South Africa, has (or at least had) a highly mechanized agricultural economy geared for export, with over 80% of the most productive land owned by a handful of white farmers. But here the parallel ends, for unlike South Africa, Zimbabwe’s rural population are largely peasant, subsistence farmers and importantly Zanu-PF’s power base. The divide between urban and rural could not be starker with the majority of the MDC’s supporters members of Zimbabwe’s small, urban working class.

And this is what it’s all about — land and the political power that goes with those who control it. Unfortunately, since independence, Zanu-PF has done little to actually deal with this issue failing, until recently to return the land to its rightful owners and then making a right mess of it because it did it for all the wrong reasons.

Ever since independence was gained in 1980, Zimbabwe has been a one-party state with Mugabe long proclaiming an allegedly socialist, anti-Western message without a single bleat of protest from the UK, even knighting the guy (just this week withdrawn by the ‘Queen’). So what changed? Why has Mugabe become the man the West loves to hate?

Basically, it’s sheer convenience together with a deeply ingrained racism that has propelled Mugabe into the media meat grinder and for no other purpose than to rationalize its own illegal actions of intervention and mass murder in the name of human rights and democracy.

We saw the same demonization of Myanmar (or Burma as the West chooses to continue calling it) even as major Western oil cartels continue to suck oil from the ground.

The pattern is plain for all to see: keep diverting attention away from the actions of the pirates by making a big song and dance about other countries’ when the reality is that the West doesn’t give a damn about the people of Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, or any country that fits the profile—allegedly anti-democratic, trashing human rights, this is after all, the current propaganda line of the West, a case of do as I say but don’t do as I do.”

BACK IN DURBAN

I hopped over the Durban for the weekend in time to catch the last shows of Fashion Week. The slogan: “Born on the Sidewalk. Refined on the Catwalk.” I visted with my old friend Patrick Bond, the brilliant academic and activist at the Bluffs, a particularly attractive Ocean-side beach.

At the airport, when I arrived, there was a man with a more life threatening mission. He was greeting scientists arriving for a Honey Bee Summit. Read on:

Honey bee crisis could lead to higher food prices - Yahoo! News

Other News of Interest:

I don’t recall if I mentioned that I have a long piece in LA CITY BEAT about the risks of a credit card meltdown. San Diego’s City Beat will now pick it up.

I am already getting letters on it:

Alex writes, ”I read your article recently and thought I’d send you this little tidbit. I’m a “deadbeat” cardholder meaning that I have paid my Visa in full every month since I got it in 1988.

I’ve looked at my B of A Visa card statement lately and I’ve noticed something disturbing. I received my most recent statement on June 16th and the payment due date is June 29th, a Sunday which means I have to pay it by Friday June 27th (I was told this by my bank but this is not stated anywhere on the statement) So that means I have 9 (NINE!!) business days to make my payment or suffer late fees and interest.

I think this is wrong and deceptive and is deliberately trying to make the consumer suffer fees and interest! I’ve complained to my branch but they say call the 800 number and complain, but that does nothing as all I get is a computer or someone who has no real power to change things. WHAT CAN I DO???

I feel like the card company is trying to screw me and complaining is like trying to order the waves at the beach to stop crashing.

very frustrated.

This situation is getting worse:

Is the credit card bubble next to go

Credit scores hit by card limits - Yahoo! News

GOOD NEWS? CHINA CUTS BACK ON EXECUTIONS

BEIJING (AP) — China says judges are overturning a significant percentage of all death sentences as part of steps to ensure it is applied only to those who truly deserve it. What it still isn’t saying is how many people are put to death each year. China is believed to execute more people annually than any other country, but the true figure remains a state secret for reasons that remain obscure.

“We can only guess that the authorities are embarrassed by the huge number of people being executed,” Mark Allison, a Hong Kong-based researcher for human rights group Amnesty International, said Friday in a telephone interview.

Advocacy groups’ own estimates vary widely — from several hundred to several thousand executions in China last year. Allison said China won’t be able to consolidate reforms or build real transparency and trust until it begins releasing the figure — something that would be far easier to do than actually abolishing the death penalty.

The Supreme People’s Court rejected 15 percent of all death sentences reviewed in the first half of this year, the official China Daily newspaper said Friday. That’s the same percentage as it rejected last year after recovering the right of final review from lower courts at the start of 2007.

LETTER: A WILLIAM SMART BELIEVES I AM NOT THAT SMART

., I thought the History Channel used a logo with THC? Speaking of which, what a great acronym. It’s said we have to remember history or we’ll never learn or grow, but it seems to me that memory is fallible. It’s true, we don’t know everything, so anything you do know is subject to change when you learn something else. More important is that we form understandings which, that isn’t’ based on knowing anything. Maybe History isn’t as importnat as data mining today, when it comees to small minded caca raoches spinning the public. The less said the better, I guess. You haven’t learned that yet, have you Danny?

I guess not. I have learned be appreciative of all the kind Happy Birthday greetings I received here on the southern tip of Africa, Thanks to readers and old friends who took a second out to write. At a time when the work I am doing seems harder and harder, its meaningful for me to know that what I am doing connects with some of you and that you are willing to say so.

Thank you.

I also want to publicly thank Bill Moyers for sending a supportive note, book and tapes to my dad who at 90 is one of his leading fans in Boston. What a mensch. For my dad, it was like hearing from one of his Gods. Smile.

Your comments welcome. Writing as I can.

Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

FOR ANY DISSECTOR READERS IN JOHANNESBURG, YOU ARE INVITED:

TUESDAY JULY 1
DARKIEMENTARY FILIM NITE
@ THE HOUSE OF NSAKO
PRESENTS
THE AFRICAN PREMIERE OF
BOOB TUBE
A NEW DISSECTION BY DA NEWS DISSECTOR
DAT MEAN DA BIG MAN: DANNY SCHECHTER
followed by an IMBIZO DISKASHIN featuring da filimaker n frenz

BOOB TUBE
dir by Danny Schechter

ABOUT THE FILIM:
Before reality TV, before Girls Gone Wild, before the idea of young ladies baring their breasts for the camera became vogue, Ugly George roamed the streets of New York and persuaded young women to undress for his camera. How did he get away with it? Why would any woman in her right mind cooperate? Could he possibly have had sex with 4000 women as he claims? Boob Tube documents two stories: first about a one-man crusading machine against hypocrisy on television, second about society’s deep rooted obsession with naked women.

ABOUT THE FILIMMAKER:
DANNY SCHECHTER IS IN TOWN!!! NUFF SAID!!!

ABOUT DARKIEMENTARY FILIM NITES:
Mahala Media is producing this screening series every Tuesday night at the House of Nsako, screening local and international truths and fikshans through an AfriKan lenz. Equipment graciously provided by the 3 Continents Film Festival.

ABOUT THE HOUSE OF NSAKO: 101 High Street, Brixton, JHB
The House of NsAkO is a Museum and Institute of African POpular KAlture – MIAPOKA! Music, Art, Film, Food, Fashion, Literature & Dance all come together to create Jozi’s most unique, inspiring venue that ACCURATELY reflects the contemporary South African experience. Dinner and drinks are served at the venue. NsAkO was recently featured in the City Press and Mail and Guardian. More info at www.nsako.co.za.